COWHC Men's 3s vs Aldershot & Farnham Canons - 29th Sept 2018

M3s report from Jack
AP
Adam du pre
Mon 01/10/2018 11:24
Unwanted
To:
Chris Maundrell (chrismaundrell76@hotmail.com);
The first game of a new season in a new league brought about the usual excitment and desire to kick the season off well. For all except our captain who is off on a stag do in Holland...

Lots of familiar faces from last year featured, with a couple of promotions from 4s in Nelle and James who had cracking games, and a new recruit in Charlie Armstrong who also had a great game.

Aldershot and Farnham are a new oppo for the 3s and very much an unknown, and just before the push back we found out the oppo only had 9 players, so stand in captain Hutch gave a pep talk about still putting in 100% and not letting up until the final whistle.

We started well and were on the attack straight away, with Aldershot defending deep almost from the first whistle. The focus was to move the ball as much as possible to tire out the already under strength oppo, and our focus on basics in 3s training paid off; our passing, ball movement and off the ball movement were excellent. Sustained attacks eventually led to our first goal with a miss-hit from me somehow beating their keeper who probably had one of the busier goalkeeping days he'll have for a while!

Continuous waves of attack were started from the back by Hutch and Chalkie who were often camped a fair way inside the aldershot half. More goals followed with a cracking top D strike by Cocksy, a great turn and shot by Nelle, a shorty from Hutch and good finish from Milley after great work from Charlie down the left.

At 5-0 and with the oppo already tiring at half time Hutchy stressed that we should continue to push the oppo and let the ball do the work. Another brilliant half of hockey followed with another clinical finish from Nelle, a great team goal with a tap in finish for James Edwards, another one for me after great work by Mulley, another monster hit from Cocksy finding the bottom corner, and a couple of beauties from Dav including an early season contender for goal of the season, after a patient passing team build up a good lead by Dav and deflection from the top of the D into the top corner.

Overall it was a fairly easy first league game back, but we played some excellent team hockey, some of the best we've played in a while - with numerous votes for POM showing that. At some point in first half i was about to inject a shortie from the wrong dash on the baseline and so got DOD, despite corny turning up 30 seconds before the start, in a full croydon/(harlem) ghetto tracksuit, looking like he'd just done un-punctual and massively over-running drug deal, with absolutely no hockey kit whatsoever, after having locked all his kit in his garden shed and then losing the key to his garden shed, so having to borrow an entire outfit, shoes, and stick, and STILL managing to evade DOD! As did our illustrious captain who is away for the first two games of the season!!!! Criminal...

MOM was won by a great performance from Dav Mahi who returned from his year long round the world drinking holiday.

Overall, a lot of positives from a great team performance to take into our next game against our old rivals kenley.

Score: 11-0

Scorers:
Nelle 2, Cocksy 2, Dav 2, Jack 2, Mulley, Hutch, James Edwards.